Missouri Law Allows Hospitalized Patients To Vote In Elections

Most people don’t schedule their emergencies or plan to be hospitalized. However, if they find themselves in a hospital bed around election time and can’t make it to the polls, they can still vote. A Missouri law outlines how patients who are hospitalized, confined due to an injury or illness, or confined in a residential care or skilled nursing facility can still cast a ballot.

Anyone hospitalized after 5 p.m. Wednesday, July 24, may request an emergency absentee ballot be brought to them for the Aug. 6 primary election. As long as the hospitalized patient is registered to vote, they can request this ballot up until, and including, the day of the election.

Patients must be hospitalized or confined in their own election jurisdiction or an adjacent one in the same county to use this emergency ballot process.

Patients should contact their local election office and request an absentee ballot and application be brought to their location. Patients can find their local election office on the Missouri Secretary of State’s website.

According to the state statute, if the election office receives multiple applications for absentee ballots from the same address, a bipartisan team will deliver the ballots, witness the voting and return the ballots and applications for the patients.

Hospital leaders should contact their county clerks to ensure these voting protections for hospitalized patients are followed.

Learn more about Missouri’s elections and read about MHA’s two endorsed candidates in the upcoming primary. Remember to vote Tuesday, Aug. 6!